Swansea Sound is the new project of Hue Williams and Amelia Fletcher of the Pooh Sticks, along with collaborators Rob and Ian, described as, “from other places”. They released their debut single, Corporate Indie Band in October last year, and quickly followed up with I Sold My Soul on Ebay, a one-off release available exclusively via Ebay (where else?). The band have a somewhat noble aim, “to revitalise the Global Pop Underground, making it strong enough to vanquish the corporate behemoth”, with none of their music appearing on corporate streaming sites until, “they are old enough to be library music”. Their latest offering is a new single, Indies Of The World, fittingly co-released between four independent labels across three continents. The 7″ single will be released in March, and today the band are premiering the accompanying video.

Described by the band as a song, “for the record lovers”, it’s a track that seems to exist in the middle-ground of Red-Wedge-era protest folk of the mid-eighties and the indie-pop heyday of the early nineties: as if Billy Bragg signed to Sarah Records. It might be a small scale revolution, a limited edition 7″ single probably won’t spark a uprising against the insidious march of hyper-capitalism in the music industry, but as Swansea Sound put it, “the revolution has to start somewhere”.

Rob and Amelia from the band talked me through their thoughts on the track and the video, which you can check out below.

The song and the video are a celebration of ‘indie’ in its most meaningful sense, i.e. independence from corporate control, with a DIY attitude to playing, recording, releasing records and making videos.

The video was made by Amelia and Rob, using the 7” single sleeve art by Welsh artist Catrin Saran James. Swansea Sound started during lockdown, so the band are used to sending each other bits of music, ideas for songs and video footage. It will be a strange and disconcerting moment when they are finally able to meet.

Indies of the World is the first release on new UK label Skep Wax, but it’s also coming out on sister labels Formosa Punk in Japan, HHBTM in the USA and Lavender Sweep in Wales. It’s available digitally on Bandcamp, but isn’t on Spotify or Apple or any of the other corporate streamers because they aren’t sisters, they are ogres.

Rob & Amelia from Swansea Sound on Indies Of The World.

Indies Of The World 7″ is out March 12th as a joint release between HHBTM (USA), Lavender Sweep (Wales), Skep Wax (England) and Formosa Punk (Japan). Click HERE for more information on Swansea Sound.